| 03 • March • 2009
|| Halo Wars in Stores in USA |
If you pre-ordered Halo Wars from a
retailer known to have first day release copies of games, then you should have
your copy today! If not go out and get one!!
| 31 • January • 2009
|| Ensemble Studios Closes its Doors
Forever |
On January 30th, at 5:00 PM CST,
Microsoft Games Studios closed the doors of Ensemble Studios, the creators and
developers of the successful Age of Empires series of real time strategy (RTS)
games for computers and the highly anticipated Halo Wars RTS for the Xbox 360.
The closure, which has been public news for several months, ended the studio's
14 year run of successful titles. Originally simply a studio closing, it was
later rolled into the larger, recently announced first-time-ever layoff of
Microsoft employees. All positions at the studio, more than 80 developers and
staff, both full time and contract were eliminated.
Needless to say, yesterday was not a happy day. But it was best summed up at
day's end by the words of Graeme Devine, lead writer on the Halo Wars project
when he wrote:
"I will not remember today. Today we are no longer
Ensemble. I will remember the past 5 years as Ensemble was, the greatest
assembly of passionate individuals I’ve ever been lucky enough to work with.
Good bye, good luck, and congratulations to everyone on Halo Wars."
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| 14 • January • 2009
|| News Clean Up |
Decided it was time to update this
page, and clean out stories older than say, a year or so ... which means nearly
all of them.
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| 9 • September • 2008
|| "You're Fired" |
| Microsoft Games Studios, having previously determined that the headcount in Ensemble Studios could be better applied to cutting edge projects like LIPS and You're in the Movies, brings a few general managers down to Dallas to tell the developers busting their butts to finish Halo Wars, that they are all fired. "K, Thanx, Bai!".
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